Top Posts of 2012

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone!

Because this is the last day of the year, I thought it would be cool to see what my top posts were of 2012.  Enjoy!

Modern Baroque Mudroom

 Ikea Hack - Sprucing Up Lekman Boxes

My Design Style

Ikea Hack Malm Dresser Window Seat

Ikea Hack Pax Wardrobe

 Chalkboard Sticky Note To Do List

 A would like to Thank the following blogs for referring others to my blog.  These are the top referring blogs of 2012.

Tatertots And Jello
I Heart Naptime
A Bowl Full of Lemons
DIY Showoff
My Repurposed Life

2013 is already shaping up to be a great year for me and the blog.  I have a lot of projects on the horizon and some exciting news that I will announce next week.  So, I hope that you will come back soon.

DIY Mini Fork Sunburst Mirror

Hello everyone.  I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas.  I know I sure did.  It was the best Christmas yet.  I got tons of gift cards and I can't wait to go shopping.  It looks like the office is going to get done sooner than anticipated.  Yay!

Today, I am going to show you my mini fork sunburst mirror that I made.  Awhile back, I came across this mirror on etsy.

Etsy.com

I really liked it and knew I could make this myself.  I already had most of the materials to make it as well.  So it wouldn't cost that much to make it.

Here is what you need:



5" Round Mirror (I found at Joann Fabric)
Luan plywood (Cut slightly smaller than mirror)
Several forks
Hot glue gun and glue

Once you cut your wood, you will need to remove the handles from the forks.  I wasn't sure how to do that so I asked my husband for some help.  He just bent the forks back and forth until the metal got weak and snapped on its own.

Your forks will all be different sizes using this method as you can see, but that is perfectly fine.

Now layout the forks onto the wood to get the spacing you want.

When you like the arrangement, get ready to hot glue.

Now glue the forks to the wood.

After you glue the forks down, add a bunch of glue to the fork handles and then lay your mirror on top of it.

Add a hanger on the back and it is ready to hang.

To finish this side of the cabinet soffit, I decided to use 2 bundt cake pans as art.  They were already red which was perfect.  I bought them at Walmart.  You can find the post about the book page art here.

My version of the etsy fork sunburst mirror was only $1.  Can you believe that.  Of course, if you don't already have wood, forks and hot glue, the cost would be more.

Another project down, only a few more to go.  I can't wait to show you the reveal of the Kitchen.  It is quite the transformation. 

Please, stop back soon so that you don't miss it.

I am linking up to: Craft-O-Maniac, Clairejustineoxox, I Gotta Try That, DIY Home Sweet Home, The Realhousewives of Riverton, Practically Functional, DIY by Design, Crafty Scrappy Happy, The 36th Avenue, Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, Tatertots and Jello, 

Christmas Decor

Hello again everyone. 

I wanted to show you my Christmas tree before I take a few days off from the blog to spend time with my family. 

For the past few years, we have only put up a Christmas tree and that is it.  After getting a lot of inspiration from other home decor blogs this year, I have several ideas for next Christmas.  Plus, our living room will be done this spring and I think that has been holding me back in wanting to do too many decorations.

 

 

Our Christmas tree is black.  We spray painted a regular green artificial tree a few years ago.  We missed a few spots as you will see in other pictures.

 

 

We love black and red so, naturally we have red lights and ornaments on the tree. There is a splash of silver ornaments in there as well.



 

We went with a simple star tree topper.

Not much to see I am afraid, but we love this little tree.  It is so pretty at night with all the lights off in the living room.  My husband said you can see it at the end of our road as you approach our house and it looks really good from there.

All the presents are wrapped and we are all set for Christmas in our house.  I hope you all are ready.  Please have a Merry Christmas and I will be back after the holiday to show you how I made that mini fork sunburst mirror.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Curse of the Kitchen and Book Page Silhouette Art

I'm back!!!!

So let me explain what has been going on.  I have been extremely busy remodeling our kitchen.  I did tons and tons of projects in that room and most were huge fails.  I was convinced that the kitchen was cursed.  I told my husband that I think the kitchen was happy looking crappy for so long that when I started to improve it, it rebelled.  It seemed like everything I attempted to do in there went horribly wrong.

Because of all the project fails, I started to get in a funk.  My confidence went out the window and the blog suffered.  I had nothing to blog about.  Until now.

Finally, the kitchen has decided that it likes looking better and has let me do my projects without complications.  So I have several things to show you.  The kitchen still isn't finished, but it is about 85 percent done.  I hope to have it done by the beginning of the new year.

This project that I am about to show you was the turning point in this ordeal.  It is such an easy project.  I guess I needed that fail proof project to get my confidence back and get things done.

I made these 2 Book Page Silhouette Art Prints for the soffit above our cabinets.  Very easy and cheap to make.

Here is what you need:

2 Frames (whatever size your book pages will be)
Old Book
Computer and Printer with Black Ink

I remembered that I had this old Guinness book of World Records from 1977.  How I acquired that, I have no idea.  I wasn't even born yet.  Either way, I thought it would be neat to use the pages that pertained to food.  Conveniently, there was only 2 pages that were food related records.  I tore those out carefully.

Next, I got on the computer and looked for kitchen utensil silhouette vector art that was a .png file format.

I found these two utensils that were .png files and opened them in photoshop.  As you can see, the background is invisible and that is what you want.  Also, I made mine 5x7s to fit in my frame.  You have to adjust your printer paper size to 5x7 as well.  Insert your book page into your printer and print it.

I had to cut off some excess book page to fit into my frame.  But that is it.  It is ready to hang on the wall.

It really was a relief to have a project go smoothly and quickly.  The total cost of the project was $20 for the frames and it literally took about 20 minutes to complete. 

I will post how I made the mini fork sunburst mirror next.  Another easy project.  So please come back to see that.

Thanks for sticking with me through the blogging drought.  I have some exciting things coming up for the new year and can't wait to reveal them.